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I thank the cabinet secretary for the update and want to pick up on two points on the second page of the letter.

The first is about the Scottish Government distress brief intervention programme. That is new to me, and it sounds like a positive and helpful thing. It seems to me that that can be instigated only if a person presents via a 999 emergency call or some other call to the emergency services and that the issue is dealt with at the call handling stage. When the caller presents, or does so on behalf of someone else, a decision is made in the call centre about whether that call will be directed to Police Scotland or to the distress brief intervention programme, but it is unclear where that is.

Does the call go to Police Scotland and get flagged as a potential DBI, meaning that an officer does not attend? The letter seems to imply that it is one or the other. I am a bit unclear about that, so I would find it helpful to understand the logistics of how the call handling works and where the call ends up in relation to how someone is attended to. I had never heard of the intervention, and I do not know anyone who has. It is live in 20 health and social care partnerships, and it would be helpful to know which ones it is live in.

Progress is obviously being made in rolling the intervention out, but how is it working in practice, and how do people access the service? It sounds like a very good service, with two weeks of very direct intervention, possibly one to one, with somebody who needs that help. I know some constituents who would benefit from that immediately, but I have no idea how people access the service.

Secondly, there is a comment that I wish to question. The cabinet secretary’s letter says:

“Each Health Board is providing access to a mental health clinician, accessible to police officers, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for those who require urgent mental health assessment or urgent referral to local mental health services.”

My conversations with officers and their representatives indicate that that is not the case—it is absolutely not a 24/7 service. I am intrigued to know what that access to a mental health clinician looks or feels like on the ground. Does it mean just a phone number, or will someone attend in situ? Does it refer to somewhere that the police will take someone to? Is it a physical environment? It is certainly not a 24/7 environment. If that were the case, the police would not be responding to such calls and spending so much time dealing with people with mental health difficulties. I am not entirely convinced that that statement holds true in the real world, and I think we should do a bit of work to investigate that comment further.

Your point was about scrutiny of secondary legislation. Do you mean secondary legislation that is passed here or that is passed at Westminster with relevance to devolved competences?

That sounds very wise. Assuming that this committee would be the lead committee on any such scrutiny, that would be entirely appropriate.

Yes. The online and technology industry is growing in Scotland, so there will be a number of people in senior management positions who ordinarily reside—or, to quote the bill, are “habitually resident”—in Scotland, and the question is whether they would be prosecuted under Scots law or English and Welsh law if the primary factor is where the person is resident, as opposed to where the company is registered or where the offence takes place. I just seek a bit of clarification on that. I know that the scenarios are hypothetical and we hope that offences will be few and far between, but it was not entirely clear from the LCM what the situation would look like.

What analysis has the Scottish Government done of the scale of companies that might fall into that category? Do we know how many large social media companies or tech companies to which the provisions are relevant have corporate headquarters in Scotland? Are most of them based elsewhere?

That is very helpful.

To follow on from the convener’s opening line of questioning, the submission from the SPF is dated 24 May 2023 and is addressed to the committee. Has the cabinet secretary had sight of it and does the Government intend to respond formally to its content? The SPF has made a number of very specific suggestions for changes that it would like to be made to the constitution. I am happy to go through those in public if that is helpful, but it would be quicker and easier if the Government just responded to the suggestions en bloc. Does the cabinet secretary propose to do that?

Absolutely.

I understand that, but the problem with continuity—and what I think people will be concerned about—is that it might be continuity of the status quo, which, in this case, means annual pay bargaining that ends up in industrial dispute and the removal of services and withdrawal of good will by officers.

The rabbit hole that we are going down is based on the evidence that we have in our committee papers from one of the leading protagonists in negotiations, so it is absolutely right that we raise those points, given that the SPF is not here to give us evidence prior to the vote.

The problem that we have is more of a procedural one. From what I understand, there is potential to revise the constitution but that would need to be done by regulation. What is the point of passing regulations to rubber stamp the constitution as it is, knowing that there are stakeholders who wish changes to be made and that future regulations that implement any changes will have to come back to the Parliament? Why not do it in one go?

It would be better for the Government to have a discussion with those who have presented evidence and, if any changes to the constitution have to be made, come back with regulations and do it as a one-hit wonder. I have no problem with the regulations, but I have a problem with being asked to rubber stamp a constitution with which some stakeholders clearly have problems.

Okay. So, the PNB makes recommendations to ministers. Is it then up to ministers to agree or disagree, or is the final decision what the PNB has recommended?